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The Indigenous People Problem - Part 4

We’ve been talking here about some basic Indian history and some causes of the Indian problem here in Canada but which applies to American Indians as well.

Indians on both sides of the border have become highly politicized and quite effective at promoting their cause of getting more money from various governments including federal, provincial and state. The problem is the money does not solve the basic problems on reserves and never will.

Einstein was quoted as saying “Only a fool keeps doing the same thing and expecting different results”. Quite true and applies to the Indian problem which is now 150 years old and counting.

Indians live in poverty across Canada and the US all the while blaming everyone else but themselves for their problems. And problems they have. All stemming for this stubbornness to look at themselves and their situation and start thinking of “different” solutions.

Indians have adopted the Jewish Zionist method of imposing global guilt on everyone by pouncing on anyone who dares speak out on the Indian problem. Jews have the Jewish Defence League and the Anti Defamation League - a richly funded organization designed for one purpose, that being to destroy anyone who questions the Holocaust, for one thing, and anti-semitism for another. Simply discussing the Holocaust can land you in jail in Germany for 6 years in that guilt-ridden country. The Holocaust and Jews is a different subject for another day, however it is the model which Indians use to further their cause.

Indians have adopted the “seek and destroy” method to prevent any discussion on the Indian problem that would benefit 1.4 million Indians currently dying a slow death in the reserve system. Discussions are deemed racist and the media hates anything controversial or smacks of potential bad publicity or, worse, court for racist remarks. Remember, we’re only talking about talking here. Simply debating the Indian reserve problem will get the media running and many other normally intelligent people shaming you as a “stinking racist”.

The main beneficiaries of the $10 billion the Canadian government channels into Indian coffers every year are a small number of corrupt Indian leaders (they like to be called “chiefs” and “elders”) who collect huge salaries to run reserves with as few as 500 hundred residents. Many collect six figure salaries and live off-reserve and enjoy lavish lifestyles while pretending to be furthering the cause of better conditions on reserves for their people.

Complete hogwash because nothing changes and cannot change because the system itself is badly designed and designed for failure which is the current and past state for 99.9% of all reserves across the country. Remember Einsteins words about doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Reserves are a disaster because the people living on them do not own the land they occupy and that alone is the single biggest problem with life on the reserve but do you think anyone is discussing ownership? Not even a whisper. Not by the chiefs and not by the politicians.

Because Canadian law doesn’t apply on reserves and reserve land is basically a communist era concept that didn’t work in Soviet Russia or East Germany and will never work here in Canada. People will not invest in land they can never themselves own. It’s against human nature to fix what belongs to someone else - the feds in this case.

Why would an Indian family living in a home they do not own that sits on land they do not own spend a single dollar improving it or fixing it. Indians have for so long relied on charity from Canadian taxpayers for their living that they have lost the incentive to even try changing things. Indians do not even possess the concept of free enterprise and have come to expect everything from the government which keeps handing it out.

We all know that feeding bears only makes them dependent on food handouts from that point on. That applies to people who come to rely on handouts and applies to Indians living on reserves. It must be stressed that this is not the normal Indian’s doing and they can’t be blamed for the way it’s setup. This is a federal government problem and the chiefs that collect their extortion salaries to run what amounts to in most reserves, a small village of a few hundred people.

The fact is nobody has the will to fix this land and law issue. The land being ownership and the law being applicable Canadian laws on reserves. Fixing these two things would solve 95% of the social and economic problems facing people living on reserves.

Reserves are just a step above shanty towns that exist in Brazilian and South African city outskirts. Both are lawless poverty stricken zones, no-man zones populated by people in hopeless situations that are ignored because everyone, politicians and the criminal chiefs refuse to deal with the main underlying problems.

Reserves and shanty towns are economic dead zones that can never provide what people need which is the right to pursue independence through personal hard work. This is what drives every Canadian and American citizen and immigrant to achieve good jobs and homes and a future for themselves and their children.

You can’t have that in a place you can’t own the land or the house you live in. Without the right to own your property you give up. And your children’s education means nothing unless they’re prepared to move off reserve into mainstream society where they will thrive and have hope. There is no hope on reserves. When an 18 year old boy or girl graduates from high school - a 1% rare occurrence - what do they do next? If they stay on reserve they have no hope of a job because there is no real local economy except for maybe a casino, if you call that an opportunity.

Otherwise this 18 year old has to leave. With that move gives them personal hope. Which unfortunately leaves the people they leave behind with one more smart educated individual to contribute elsewhere and not on reserve.

It just makes sense to leave for that person. Staying is hopeless with zero job opportunities and zero hope of owning their own home on their own property and zero hope of starting a business on a commercial property. These things simply don’t exist on reserves. And under the current belief system of the federal government and the corrupt chiefs that do nothing to help change things nothing will ever improve on these reserves.

Reserves are a tragedy because of the human loss taking place there. The canary in the coal mine are the young people, as young as 12, committing suicide. These young victims of federal government and criminal chiefs’ folly see death as an escape from hopelessness that awaits them.

Young people cannot project themselves living off reserve because they are not given that option and cannot imagine anything but living on rundown reserves with “boil water” advisories and slum-like conditions and drug and alcohol dependent family life. They see gangs as an escape which only prolongs the pain of life on the reserve. They don’t see parents leaving for work every morning as normal children see in the rest of the country. If they have televisions, they see how people do live which is an alien world they cannot imagine themselves taking part in. And their parents don’t see the point of making sure they go to school each day. So most kids don’t attend school and don’t bother getting an education. Most kids function several grades below their age level. By the time they do graduate grade 12 most Indian kids are at a real level of grade 8.

Suicide becomes the tragic end game for too many young people trapped in hopeless lives that lead to nowhere. They see their friends graduate and leave the reserve and those who stay do nothing. There is nothing to do on reserves. No farming. No commercial operations. No work available. Reserves are reminiscent of Communist era live where people gave up and the economy stagnated and generations of young people were wasted.

When the wall came down between East and West Germany the contrast was profound. East Germans were 50 years behind in every aspect of life and standard of living. In the last 25 years the gap has closed and former East Germans are enjoying the fruits of their efforts and young people are driving that forward. Communism did not work there from the 1945 until 1989 and the only way East Germany could prevent mass exodus of the entire population was building a wall to keep them in.

Canadian (and American) reserves have walls that resemble the Russian Gulag of the Soviet era. Prisons without walls because nobody could survive escaping into endless swamps and bogs and frozen winter worlds. It was hopeless and thousands died from starvation and disease and many more from simply giving up. The mind needs hope to sustain the body and the Soviet system removed that hope. As do reserves.

Fences are not necessary for many domesticated animals which will not wander far off, if at all. Pets, like rodents, will return to open cages - escape not being an option - many pet birds keep coming back. Cages aren’t necessary for many animals that get used to their little domestic territory.

Similarly, we have trained Indians and Indians have conditioned themselves to live on reserves without any thought of leaving despite the freedom to do so at any time if they so wished. Many people don’t know that. Similarly non reserve persons can visit reserves any time - reserves are not private property after all and open to all - but I will venture that most people don’t take that opportunity. Primarily because we don’t think to visit a reserve and secondarily because we think we’re trespassing if we do. Or we’re scared to. That’s the other possibility.

Reserves are prisons, like the Gulag, to many residents, particularly the young who don’t know any better and whose lives are intertwined with their families and friends and they never get to travel outside to other parts of the country, something most people outside of reserves take for granted as a normal thing to do regularly. That opportunity, to travel, is further compounded by the sheer isolation of most reserves, being located thousands of kilometres from the nearest town, compounded by the total lack of roads or railways to allow any kind of normal travel. Air and water are the only means of travel for most reserves, not an economic option for most people either. You don’t just hop into your car and travel to some friend or relative in a nearby town because it’s just not possible.

You don’t go shopping to a mall or do some site seeing or do some spontaneous trip anywhere or maybe a vacation somewhere. Your reserve is a small universe with nothing much to see or do and the invisible fence that keeps you there is the endless wilderness of bogs and forests and lakes that surrounds your reserve and imprisons you and separates you from the rest of the world. If you’re lucky you have television or maybe internet to bring the outside world in. Maybe, if you can dream, you imagine yourself in that bigger outside world. You imagine going to university and getting that degree so many of the young people seem to do in that other world. You imagine pursuing your dream of becoming a doctor or a nurse or an engineer and having a nice career and buying a nice house and a car and traveling to other places. Maybe you do that. Any maybe you have enough imagination to pursuade your parents to leave the reserve to do exactly that. Maybe your parents are wise enough to know that is your only option - leaving.